Tag Archives: Church Vitality

The Church Building Challenge

28 Tuesday Oct 2014

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At noon, I entered a church around the corner that was about to be auctioned. The building was small – a sanctuary, bathrooms, a couple of closets, a small fellowship room, kitchenette and what could be used an office. According to websites, the starting bid was around $100,000.

As I looked around the building, I noticed hymnals still in the pews. A floral arrangement decorated the front of the church. Tracts expressing a theology that seemed foreign to me were stacked in a wall display. Fliers still hung on bulletin boards. It was a “ghost church” – a church that was once alive but now was a merely a shell which no longer held life and energy.

It was sad to enter this church and look around at the pulpit knowing a pastor had preached his last sermon there, people were baptized in their pool behind the pulpit and that dreams of a new ministry may have dwindled. But I didn’t know their stories. Besides seeing the church’s Facebook page which hadn’t been updated since January 29 of this year, little was available about the recent life of the church.

I overheard the realtor handling the auction saying that no other churches had come forward as interested in purchasing the building and property. So I asked him a little more about this. He said that for some churches who were growing, this was not an ideal space – too small. It sounded like churches were looking for spaces that tapped into their potential.

After my tour around the building, I left before the auction itself could take place. Because of my departure, I never heard what had happened during the auction, if anyone bid or who would be moving into the former church.

This is another piece of the larger picture of churches and buildings. What are some recent churches you know that have moved from their building as their membership drastically changed? How were their buildings no longer serving their mission, vision and purpose? How much did it take for the congregation to arrive at the decision that the building no longer fit their identity or who God was calling them to be? And how much grieving did each of these churches need to endure when leaving behind this concrete part of their past while moving into the future courageously and with the wisdom of God?

When families grow, they purchase a home that fits their growing family. When a couple are empty nesters, they will often sell their house to move to something smaller. When a person is no longer able to climb the stairs in their homes, they move into a home which accommodates their accessibility. When our finances change, we move to residences that we can afford. So why aren’t the reasons a congregation possesses or releases a church building similar to the reasons an individual or family buys and sells a house or condominium?

While we are attached to our homes, I believe we are more attached to our church buildings. These are the places where the highest and lowest moments of our lives occur: weddings, funerals, baptisms, confirmations, etc. The reason we keep a building is not often practical or even spiritual but emotional. How do we transform our way of thinking so that churches look at church buildings as a means of doing ministry rather than our greatest achievement and acquisition of ministry?

False Church Marketing

29 Monday Sep 2014

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I’ve received multiple maimagerketing pieces from a church expansion in my area.  The church prides itself on welcoming people just as they are – no matter who they are.  They want to get to know their visitors’ authentic selves.

Do they really?

So I went to their website and noticed quite a few things that communicates otherwise: sermons that consider being gay a sin… messages that state that living together is wrong… women prohibited from certain leadership roles.

To me, this doesn’t affirm everyone like it says in their marketing pieces.

This is no different than other large churches in our area.  “Come as you are,” they tell us.  But when it comes down to it, their theology is set in stone and not even God Herself could change it.

Listen, I think there’s a good chance that all churches stretch the truth to get people to visit.  But when you tell people that they are welcome like they are and then send various messages that say otherwise, then that is false marketing.  You are not welcome as you are… you are welcome as the person God will transform you to be.

I’m not saying that everyone in our churches will agree with us or like us.  But we deserve to come to a church without feeling spiritual stones being thrown at us- especially when we think the stones won’t be thrown.

What if you could find a church that would welcome you no matter who you love or how you love?  What if you could find a church that would welcome you no matter what your family may look like – even if it means two unmarried adults raising their beautiful children?  What if you could find a church that would want you to be a leader even if you are female?  What if you could find a church that affirms your doubts and allows you to struggle with your agnosticism or even atheism publicly?  Isn’t that worth just as much as smoothies in the middle of worship or a band with hip music?

Wearing blue jeans or coming into church with uncombed hair doesn’t really affirm your disarray.  Celebrating a God that loves your soul just as it is right now – in all its chaos – is worth everything.

In the meantime, I would ask the churches who want gay people to change their sexual orientation, or who shake a finger at couples who intentionally and thoughtfully live together before marriage, or who don’t allow half of the population to hold leadership roles to say so in their marketing.  Stop lying.  Stop bearing false witness to yourselves.  Be real.  Be authentic.  Say it like it is.

The Church in Perimenopause

22 Monday Sep 2014

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By Ed Uthman from Houston, TX, USA (Human Egg Uploaded by CFCF) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

I constantly read articles on the current status of the Church. Many believe that the Church (or at least Mainline Protestantism) is dying. Others are waiting for its resurrection or see it’s resuscitation happening in front of us. Everyone has an opinion on at what point of the life cycle Mainline Protestantism or all of Christianity exists.

I believe the church is entering its state of perimenopause.

Being a woman who is around middle age and experiencing the slow onset of symptoms, I’ll admit that I may be projecting some of my exciting life onto the current state of Christianity. But the more I read symptoms, the more I believe the Church is in perimenopause – the full-fledged middle-aged transitional period of ups and downs. And, yes, this means that if the Church is the Bride of Christ, then Christ’s bride is going through “the change.”

We’re hot and cold. Do you ever notice how some weeks church attendance is low and other Sundays attendance is up? How come some events are well attended and others are not? The hot flashes of Easter Sunday and Christmas Eve services give us hope and passion that maybe we will have connected with a larger audience, and then the following Sundays church attendance has cooled down to its normal state (or slightly lower). Nothing is truly consistent. Perimenopause is a time of riding the ebb and flow of hormonal waves. As leaders of churches, we ride the swings of highs and lows. Bring along a fan and a jacket because we won’t know what we’ll need that Sunday.

Fertility exists in a different state. We like to think of fertility being a numbers game – more children, more young families, bigger attendance, etc. But fertility isn’t what it was in our 20’s or 30’s, and fertility in churches isn’t what it was in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Fertility in the second-act church includes more quality time with our smaller congregations, heightened online presence and outside of the box thinking. As middle-aged women, we do not intend to stop creating even when physical birth is not an option. Likewise, the Church shouldn’t give up on its process of creation and birthing new programs.

Just like perimenopause, the life of the Church is not over. Instead, the Church has now reached middle age. The Church is not dying – – far from it. When those of us who are women realize that this change is upon us, we often think our lives are over, that we’re “dried up.” Nonsense! A reimagined act two is about to begin. What does that new stage of our life look like? How will we be vital with our physical bodies or our church body looking different? We are all still so full of life, and whether we read this as middle aged women, as church leaders or as congregations. Now is the time to find those new techniques in vitality which will remind us that we’re still very much alive and ready to listen for where God is calling us in this era of our lives.

Whether it’s the story of the resurrection, the fertility stories of Sarah or Elizabeth or our 45-year-old friend’s new hobbies or life activities, let’s remember that life isn’t over for us as middle-aged individuals or as churches finding our second wind.